GDC, Mothership Feedback, and Pixelated Faces

I went to GDC for the first time this year and it was pretty awesome. Beyond general social anxiety, I met a lot of cool people, saw a lot of awesome upcoming games, and received tons of amazing feedback on Mothership.

The first change we're making to Mothership is to add Minion upgrades. We're toying around with different types, but these are the ones we have implemented:

Minion Types

Normal Minion

The minion you know and love. Deals 1 hit damage, normal speed, normal hit count. Your trusty companion.

2Hit Minion

The 2Hit minion can survive two hits before being destroyed. This minion has several strategic uses including dispatching of missiles and causing damage and helping get past the frustrating Juggernaut's tri-laser and hyper beam.

Seeker Minion

The Seeker minion does one thing and does it well: it changes it trajectory to collide with the first non-laser projectile that enters into its radar radius. This is great to handle those pesky hard-to-time projectiles as well as damaging a moving Hero target.

Speed Minion

The Speed minion is pretty straight forward. This minion travels much quicker than the standard minion, making zipping around projectiles and collecting scrap (more on this later) much easier.

Split Minion

The Split minion breaks apart into 3 pieces at the end of its path, taking out multiple projectiles, collecting scrap, and dealing damage to whatever is in its path. Damage for each part is 1/3rd of a whole minion, meaning it's not as effective against the Hero.

Finally, a Resource Management mechanic!

So, now that we have all these upgrades, we need something build them with, right? That's where the new scrap system comes in. When a Hero dies, he drops Scrap instead of health. Scrap can be used to purchase or upgrade to different minions types as well as repairing damage to the Mothership.

After each battle, the Upgrades screen will appear, allowing you to purchase or repair your Minions or Mothership. This setup even opens up the possibility of adding upgrades to the Mothership as well. Also, to add a bit of continuity between battles, scrap will carry over between deaths. So, if the player is having trouble getting through the battle, they can do a run without spending scrap and use it in the next battle.

First Batch of Faces

Stryker finished up the first batch of our reddit-curated Hero portraits.